新概念第四册课文_新概念英语第四册第1课_Finding,Fossil,man

Lesson 1 Finding fossil man第一课发现化石人by ROBIN PLACEfrom Finding fossil man1-1. We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write.【译文】我们能读到五千年前近东发生之事，那里的人最先学会了书写。

【单词和短语】read：此处为不及物动词，意为“读到，获悉”（to find out information from books，newspapers etc.），后接of或about，例如：He reads about the war. 他读到关于战争的消息。

Did you read of their accident in the newspapers?你在报上看到他们遭遇意外事故的消息了么？5,000 years：五千年。

另学习millennium，意为“一千年”，复数为millennia。

5,000 years即为5 millennia。

the Near East：近东，指地中部沿岸地区，包括亚洲西南部和非洲东北部，有时还包括巴尔干半岛。

1-2. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write.【译文】但时至今日世上某些地方的人还不会书写。

【单词和短语】even now：此处意为“甚至到现在”，例如：Even now he won’t believe me. 他甚至到现在还不相信我。

even now另有两解，一为“就在此刻”，例如：Perhaps even now the time has arrived.也许正是此刻时机来到了。

另一为“尽管这样，虽然情况如此”（in spite of what has happened），例如：I have explained everything，but even now she doesn’t understand.我什么都解释了，但是尽管如此她还是不明白。

新概念英语第四册： Lesson1 Finding fossil man 【篇一】 Finding fossil man 发现化石人Why are legends handed down by storytellers useful?We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago inthe Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas -- legends handed down from onegeneration of another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who livedlong ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of themcame from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived solong ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first modern men came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who madethem have disappeared without trace.ROBIN PLACE Finding fossil man【篇二】fossil manadj. 化石人recountv. 叙述sagan. 英雄故事legendn. 传说，传奇migrationn. 迁移，移居anthropologistn. 人类学家archaeologistn. 考古学家ancestorn. 祖先Polynesianadj.波利尼西亚(中太平洋之一群岛)的Indonesian. 印度尼西亚flint。

Lesson 1 Finding fossil man 发现化石人We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of story tellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.ROBIN PLACE Finding fossil man。

Lesson 1 Finding fossil man 发现化石人We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write.But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.参考译文我们从书籍中可读到5,000 年前近东发生的事情，那里的人最早学会了写字。

NEW CONCEPTENGLISH(IV) (new version)2Lesson1 Finding Fossil manWe can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only w ay that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas--legends handed down from one generation of story-tellersto another. These legends are useful because they can tell us somethin g aboutmigrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesianpeoples now living in th e Pacific Islands came from. The sagasof these peopleexplain that some of them came from Indo nesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that ev en theirsagas, if they had any,are forgotten. Soarchaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient me n made tools of stone, especially flint, becausethis is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used woodand skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay,and so the tool s oflong ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.3Lesson2 Spare that spiderWhy, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends ? Because they destroy somany insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the humanrace. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they woulddevour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protectionwe get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts wh o eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never dothe least harm to us or our bel ongings.Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them.One can t ell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legsand an insect never more th an six.How many spiders are engagedin this work on our behalf ? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, andhe estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre, that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a f ootball pitch. Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creatures, not content wi th only three meals aday.It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed byspi ders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the c ountry.T. H. GILLESPIESpare that Spider from The ListeneLesson 3 Matterhorn manModern alpinists try to climb mountains by aroute which will give them goodsport, and the moredifficult it is, the more highly it is regarded. In the pioneeringdays, however, this was not the case at all. The early climbers were looking forthe easiest way to the top because the summit was the prize they sought, especially if it had never been attained before. It is true that during their explor ations they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature, equipped in a manne r which would make a modern climber shudder at the thought, but they did not go out of their w ay to court such excitement. They had a single aim,a solitary goal--the top!It is hard for us to reali ze nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers. Exceptfor one or two places such as Zermatt an d Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular, Alpine villages tended to be impoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the high mountains. Such inns as there were were generally dirty and flea-ridden; the food simply local cheeseaccompanied by bread often t welve months old, all washed down with coarse wine. Often a valley boasted no inn at all, and cli mbers found shelter wherever they could--sometimes with the local priest (who was usually as p oor as his parishioners), sometimes with shepherds or cheesemakers. Invariably the background was the same: dirt and poverty, and very uncomfortable. For men accustomed to eating seven-course dinners and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home, the change to the Alps mu st have been very hard indeed.5Lesson4 Seeing handsInthe Soviet Union several caseshave been reported recently of people who can read and detect colours with their fingers, and even see through solid doors and walls. One case concerns an 'ele ven-year-old schoolgirl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision but who can also perceive things wit h different parts of her skin, and through solid walls. This ability was first noticed by her father. O ne day she came into his office and happened to put her hands on the door of a locked safe. Sudd enly she asked her father why he kept so many old newspapers locked away there, and even desc ribed the way they were done up in bundles.Vera's curious talent was brought to the notice of a s cientific research institute in the town of UIyanovsk, near where she lives, and in April she was giv en a series of tests by a special commission of the Ministry of Health of the RussianFederal Repu blic. During these tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and, strange r still, by moving her elbow over a child's game of Lotto she was able to describe the figures and c olours printed on it; and, in another instance, wearing stockings and slippers, to make out with h er foot the outlines and colours of a picture hidden under a carpet. Other experiments showed th at her knees and shoulders had a similar sensitivity. During all these tests Vera was blindfold; and, indeed, except when blindfold she lacked the ability to perceive things with her skin. lt was also f ound that although she could perceive things with her fingers this ability ceased the moment her hands were wet.6Lesson 5 YouthPeople are always talking about' the problem of youth '. If there is one —which I take leave to doubt --then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human bei ngs--people just like their elders. There is only one difference be tween an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorio us future before him and the old one has a splendid future behi nd him: and maybe that is where the rub is. When I was a teena ger,I felt that I was just young and uncertain --that I was a new b oy in a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be r egarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thin g, being a problem gives you a certain identity, and that isone o f the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.I find youn g people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they have n ot a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, a nd the origins of things. It's asif they were in some sense cosmi c beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatur es. All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. He may b e conceited, illmannered, presumptuous of fatuous, but I do no t turn for protection to dreary clich a bout respect for elders-- as if mere agewere a reason for respect. I accept that we are e quals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wron g. Lesson 6 The sporting spiritI am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport create s goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common pe oples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket , they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Eve n if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contes ts lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general pri nciples.Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You pl ayto win, and the game has little meaning unless you do youru tmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play si mply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of pr estige arises, assoon asyou feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instinct s are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mim ic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the p layers but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the specta tors, of the nations. who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe--at any rate for short per iods--that running, jumping and kicking aball are tests of nation al virtue.刘晓华liuxiaohua72@ 8Lesson7 BatsNot all sounds made by animals serve as language, and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a casein which thePeople are always talking about' the problem of youth '. If there is one —which I take leave to doubt --then it is older people wh o create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human bei ngs--people just like their elders. There is only one difference be tween an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorio us future before him and the old one has a splendid future behi nd him: and maybe that is where the rub is. When I was a teena ger, I felt that I was just young and uncertain --that I wasanew b oyin a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to ber egarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thin g, being a problem gives you a certain identity, and that isone o f the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.I find youn g people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they haven ot a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, a ndthe origins of things. It's asif they were in some sense cosmi c beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatur es. All thatis in my mind when I meet a young person. He may b e conceited, illmannered, presumptuous of fatuous, but I do no t turn for protection to dreary clich a bout respect for elders-- asifmere agewere areasonfor respect.Iacceptthat wearee quals,andIwill arguewith him,asanequal,ifIthink heiswron g.7Lesson6 The sporting spiritI am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport create s goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common pe oples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket , they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Eve n if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contes ts lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general pri nciples.Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. Youpl ayto win, and the game has little meaning unless you do youru tmost to win. Onthe village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play si mply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of pr estige arises,assoon asyou feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savagecombative instinct sare aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knowsthis. Atthe international level sport is frankly mim ic warfare. But the significant thing isnot the behaviour of the p layers but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the specta tors, of the nations. who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe--at any rate for short per iods--that running, jumping and kicking aball are tests of nation al virtue.刘晓华liuxiaohua72@ 8Lesson7 BatsNot all sounds made by animals serve as language, and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a casein which thePeople are always talking about' the problem of youth '. If there is one—whichI take leave to doubt --then it is older people wh o create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human bei ngs--people just like their elders. There is only one difference be tween an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorio us future before him and the old one has a splendid future behi nd him: and maybe that is where the rub is. When I was a teena ger, I felt that I was just young and uncertain --that Iwasanew b oy in a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be r egarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thin g, being a problem gives you a certain identity,and that isone o f the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.I find youn g people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they have n ot a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, a ndthe origins of things. It's asif they were in some sense cosmi c beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatur es. All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. He may b e conceited, illmannered, presumptuous of fatuous, but I do no t turn for protection to dreary clich a bout respect for elders-- asifmere agewere areasonfor respect.Iacceptthat weare e quals,and Iwill arguewith him,asan equal,ifIthink heiswron g.Lesson 6 The sporting spiritI am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport create s goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common pe oples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket , they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Eve n if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contes ts lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general pri nciples.Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You pl ayto win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your u tmost towin. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play si mply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of pr estige arises, as soon asyou feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instinct s are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mim ic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the p layers but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the specta tors, of the nations. who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe--at any rate for short per iods--that running, jumping and kicking aball are tests of nation al virtue.刘晓华liuxiaohua72@ 8Lesson7 BatsNot all sounds made by animals serve as language, and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a casein which the。

Lesson 1 Finding fossil manWe can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of story tellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.(by ROBIN PLACE - from Finding fossil man)New words and expressionsanthropologist /ˌænθrəˈpɑ:lədʒɪst/ n. 人类学家archaeologist /ˌɑrkɪˈɑlədʒɪst/ n. 考古学家ancestor /ˈænˌsɛstɚ/ n. 祖先fossil man /ˈfɑsəl mæn/ adj. 化石人recount /rɪˈkaʊnt/ v. 叙述saga /ˈsɑɡə/ n. 英雄故事legend /ˈlɛdʒənd/ n. 传说，传奇migration /maɪˈɡreʃən/ n. 迁移，移居Polynesian /.pɒlɪ'nɪʒɪrn/ adj.波利尼西亚（中太平洋之一群岛）的Indonesia /ˌɪndə'ni:ʒə/ n. 印度尼西亚flint /flɪnt/ n. 燧石rot /rɑ:t/ n. 烂掉发现化石人我们从书籍中可读到5,000 年前近东发生的事情，那里的人最早学会了写字。

Lesson 1 Finding fossil man 发现化石人We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write.But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.参考译文我们从书籍中可读到5,000 年前近东发生的事情，那里的人最早学会了写字。

Lesson 1 Finding fossil man 发现化石人原文：We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write.我们从书籍中可读到5,000 年前近东发生的事情，那里的人最早学会了写字。

但直到现在,世界上有些地方，人们还不会书写。

1.read of "读到", =read about区别：read about 的read 后面可以+all, much, a little等词修饰获悉的情况，但read of 不可以。

eg: He was somebody you read of every other day in the newspaper, yet we couldn't put a name to him.他是我们常在报上看到的人物，但我们不知道他是什么样的人。

We don't read much about this news.我们没有读到这类事件的报道。

原文：The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of story tellers to another.他们保存历史的唯一办法是将历史当作传说讲述，由讲述人一代接一代地将史实描述为传奇故事口传下来。

2.preserve [prɪ'zɜː(r)v] v. 保留；保护；保存；维护n.（某人或群体活动、工作等的）专门领域；果酱；腌菜；泡菜区分Conserve、preserve和reserve同：都有“保存、保留”的意思，而且词根都是-serv-异：Conservea.为了节约而保护、保存eg: You can set the temperature to 26 degrees centigrade in order to conserve energy. 你可以把温度设置成26摄氏度以节约资源。

新概念英语第四册Lesson1：Finding fossil manUnit 1 新概念英语4 Lesson 1 Finding fossil man 发现化石人Why are legends handed down by storytellers useful?We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago inthe Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas -- legends handed down from onegeneration of another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who livedlong ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of themcame from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived solong ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who madethem have disappeared without trace.ROBIN PLACE Finding fossil manfossil man (title)adj. 化石人recountv. 叙述sagan. 英雄故事legendn. 传说，传奇migrationn. 迁移，移居anthropologistn. 人类学家archaeologistn. 考古学家ancestorn. 祖先Polynesianadj.波利尼西亚(中太平洋之一群岛)的Indonesian. 印度尼西亚flintn. 燧石rotn. 烂掉参考译文我们从书籍中可读到5,000 年前近东发生的事情，那里的人最早学会了写字。

Lesson 1 Finding fossil manWe can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.Lesson 2 Spare that spiderWhy, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends? Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the harm to us or our belongings.Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them. One can tell the difference almost at a glance, for a spider always has eight legs and insect never more than six.How many spiders are engaged in this work no our behalf? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre; that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a football pitch. Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creatures, not content with only three meals a day. It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country.Lesson 3 Matterhorn manModern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them good sport, and the more difficult it is, the more highly it is regarded. In the pioneering days, however, this was not the case at all. The early climbers were looking for the easiest way to the top, because the summit was the prize they sought, especially if it and never been attained before. It is true that during their explorations they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature, equipped in a manner with would make a modern climber shudder at the thought, but they did not go out of their way to court such excitement. They had a single aim, a solitary goal -- the top!It is hard for us to realize nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers. Except for one or two places such as Zermatt and Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular, Alpine village tended to be impoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the high mountains. Such inns as there were generally dirty and flea-ridden; the food simply local cheese accompanied by bread often twelve months old, all washed down with coarse wine. Often a valley boasted no inn at all, and climbers found shelter wherever they could -- sometimes with the local priest (who was usually as poor as his parishioners), sometimes with shepherds or cheese-makers. Invariably the background was the same: dirt and poverty, and very uncomfortable. For men accustomed to eating seven-course dinners and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home, the change to the Alps must have very hard indeed.Lesson 4 Seeing handsSeveral cases have been reported in Russia recently of people who can detect colours with their fingers, and even see through solid and walls. One case concerns and eleven-year-old schoolgirl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision but who can also perceive things with different parts of her skin, and through solid walls. This ability was first noticed by her father. One day she came into his office and happened to put her hands on the door of a locked safe. Suddenly she asked her father why he kept so many old newspapers locked away there, and even described the way they were done up in bundles.Vera's curious talent was brought to the notice of a scientific research institute in the town of Ulyanovsk, near where she lives, and in April she was given a series of tests by a special commission of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federal Republic. During these tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and, stranger still, by moving her elbow over a child's game of Lotto she was able to describe the figures and colours printed on it; and, in another instance, wearing stockings and slippers, to make out with her foot the outlines and colours of a picture hidden under a carpet. Other experiments showed that her knees and shoulders had a similar sensitivity. During all these tests Vera was blindfold; and, indeed, except when blindfold she lacked the ability to perceive things with her skin. It was also found that although she could perceive things with her fingers this ability ceased the moment her hands were wet.Lesson 5 YouthPeople are always talking about 'the problem of youth'. If there is one -- which I take leave to doubt -- then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings -- people just like their elders. There is only one difference between an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorious future before him and the old one has a splendid future behind him: and maybe that is where the rub is.When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just young and uncertain -- that I was a new boy in a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity, and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.I find young people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, and theorigins of things. It's as if they were, in some sense, cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures. All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. He may be conceited, ill-mannered, presumptuous or fatuous, but I do not turn for protection to dreary cliches about respect of elders -- as if mere age were a reason for respect. I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.Lesson 6 The sporting spiritI am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the would could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the hattlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce if from general principles.Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as a the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level, sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe -- at any rate for short periods -- that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.Lesson 7 BatsNot all sounds made by animals serve as language, and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a case in which the voice plays a strictly utilitarian role.To get a full appreciation of what this means we must turn first to some recent human inventions. Everyone knows that if he shouts in the vicinity of a wall or a mountainside, an echo will come back. The further off this solid obstruction, the longer time will elapse for the return of the echo. A sound made by tapping on the hull of a ship will be reflected from the sea bottom, and by measuring the time interval between the taps and the receipt of the echoes, the depth of the sea at that point can be calculated. So was born the echo-sounding apparatus, now in general use in ships. Every solid object will reflect a sound, varying according to the size and nature of the object. A shoal of fish will do this. So it is a comparatively simple step from locating the sea bottom to locating a shoal of fish. With experience, and with improved apparatus, it is now possible not only to locate a shoal but to tell if it is herring, cod, or other well-known fish, by the pattern of its echo.It has been found that certain bats emit squeaks and by receiving the echoes, they can locate and steer clear of obstacles -- or locate flying insects on which they feed. This echo-location in bats is often compared with radar, the principle of which is similar.Lesson 8 Trading standardsChickens slaughtered in the United States, claim officials in Brussels, are not fit to grace European tables. No, say the American: our fowl are fine, we simply clean them in a differentway. These days, it is differences in national regulations, far more than tariffs, that put sand in the wheels of trade between rich countries. It is not just farmers who are complaining. An electric razor that meets the European Union's safety standards must be approved by American testers before it can be sold in the United States, and an American-made dialysis machine needs the EU's okay before is hits the market in Europe.As it happens, a razor that is safe in Europe is unlikely to electrocute Americans. So, ask businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, why have two lots of tests where one would do? Politicians agree, in principle, so America and the EU have been trying to reach a deal which would eliminate the need to double-test many products. They hope to finish in time for a trade summit between America and the EU on May 28TH. Although negotiators are optimistic, the details are complex enough that they may be hard-pressed to get a deal at all.Why? One difficulty is to construct the agreements. The Americans would happily reach one accord on standards for medical devices and them hammer out different pacts covering, say, electronic goods and drug manufacturing. The EU -- following fine continental traditions -- wants agreement on general principles, which could be applied to many types of products and perhaps extended to other countries.Lesson 9 Royal espionageAlfred the Great acted his own spy, visiting Danish camps disguised as a minstrel. In those days wandering minstrels were welcome everywhere. They were not fighting men, and their harp was their passport. Alfred had learned many of their ballads in his youth, and could vary his programme with acrobatic tricks and simple conjuring.While Alfred's little army slowly began to gather at Athelney, the king himself set out to penetrate the camp of Guthrum, the commander of the Danish invaders. There had settled down for the winter at Chippenham: thither Alfred went. He noticed at once that discipline was slack: the Danes had the self-confidence of conquerors, and their security precautions were casual. They lived well, on the proceeds of raids on neighbouring regions. There they collected women as well as food and drink, and a life of ease had made them soft.Alfred stayed in the camp a week before he returned to Athelney. The force there assembled was trivial compared with the Danish horde. But Alfred had deduced that the Danes were no longer fit for prolonged battle: and that their commissariat had no organization, but depended on irregular raids.So, faced with the Danish advance, Alfred did not risk open battle but harried the enemy. He was constantly on the move, drawing the Danes after him. His patrols halted the raiding parties: hunger assailed the Danish army. Now Alfred began a long series of skirmishes -- and within a month the Danes had surrendered. The episode could reasonably serve as a unique epic of royal espionage!Lesson 10 Silicon valleyTechnology trends may push Silicon Valley back to the future. Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology, notes there are now work-stations that enable engineers to design, test and produce chips right on their desks, much the way an editor creates a newsletter on a Macintosh. As the time and cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars, engineers may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures. Mead predicts thatinventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the office -- spawning a new generation of garage start-ups and giving the U.S. a jump on its foreign rivals in getting new products to market fast. 'We're got more garages with smart people,' Mead observes. 'We really thrive on anarchy.'And on Asians. Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at many Valley firms. And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from California's colleges. As the heads of next-generation start-ups, these Asian innovators can draw on customs and languages to forge righter links with crucial Pacific Rim markets. For instance, Alex Au, a Stanford Ph. D. from Hong Kong, has set up a Taiwan factory to challenge Japan's near lock on the memory-chip market. India-born N.Damodar Reddy's tiny California company reopened an AT & T chip plant in Kansas City last spring with financing from the state of Missouri. Before it becomes a retirement village, Silicon Valley may prove a classroom for building a global business.Lesson 11 How to grow oldSome old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -- so at least it seems to me -- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river -- small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done. Lesson 12 Banks and their customersWhen anyone opens a current account at a bank, he is lending the bank money, repayment of which he may demand at any time, either in cash or by drawing a cheque in favour of another person. Primarily, the banker-customer relationship is that of debtor and creditor -- who is which depending on whether the customer's account is in credit or is overdrawn. But, in addition to that basically simple concept, the bank and its customer owe a large number of obligations to one another. Many of these obligations can give in to problems and complications but a bank customer, unlike, say, a buyer of goods, cannot complain that the law is loaded against him.The bank must obey its customer's instructions, and not those of anyone else. When, for example, a customer first opens an account, he instructs the bank to debit his account only in respect of cheques draw by himself. He gives the bank specimens of his signature, and there is a very firm rule that the bank has no right or authority to pay out a customer's money on a cheques on which its customer's signature has been forged. It makes no difference that the forgery may have been a very skilful one: the bank must recognize its customer's signature. For this reasonthere is no risk to the customer in the practice, adopted by banks, of printing the customer's name on his cheques. If this facilitates forgery, it is the bank which will lose, not the customer. Lesson 13 The search for oilThe deepest holes of all made for oil, and they go down to as much as 25,0000 feet. But we not need to send men down to get the oil our, as we must with other mineral deposits. The holes are only borings, less than a foot in diameter. My particular experience is largely in oil, and the search for oil has done more to improve deep drilling than any other mining activity. When is has been decided where we are going to drill, we put up at the surface an oil derrick. It has to be tall because it is like a giant block and tackle, and we have to lower into the ground and haul out of the ground great lengths of drill pipe which are rotated by an engine at the top and are fitted with a cutting bit at the bottom.The geologist needs to know what rocks the drill has reached, so every so often a sample is obtained with a coring bit. It cuts a clean cylinder of rock, from which can be seen the strata the drill has been cutting through. Once we get down to the oil, it usually flows to the surface because great pressure, either from or water, is pushing it. This pressure must be under control, and we control it by means of the mud which we circulate down the drill pipe. We endeavour to avoid the old, romantic idea of a gusher, which wastes oil and gas. We want it to stay down the hole until we can lead it off in a controlled manner.Lesson 14 The Butterfly EffectBeyond two or three days, the world's best weather forecasts are speculative, and beyond six or seven they are worthless.The Butterfly Effect is the reason. For small pieces of weather -- and to a global forecaster, small can mean thunderstorms and blizzards -- any prediction deteriorates rapidly. Errors and uncertainties multiply, cascading upward through a chain of turbulent features, from dust devils and squalls up to continent-size eddies that only satellites can see.The modern weather models work with a grid of points of the order of sixty miles apart, and even so, some starting data has to guessed, since ground stations and satellites cannot see everywhere. But suppose the earth could be covered with sensors spaced one foot apart, rising at one-foot intervals all the way to the top of the atmosphere. Suppose every sensor gives perfectly accurate readings of temperature, pressure, humidity, and any other quantity a meteorologist would want. Precisely at noon an infinitely powerful computer takes all the data and calculates what will happen at each point at 12.01, then 1202, then 12.03...The computer will still be unable to predict whether Princeton, New Jersey, will have sun or rain on a day one month away. At noon the spaces between the sensors will hide fluctuations that the computer will not know about, tiny deviations from the average. By 12.01, those fluctuations will already have created small errors one foot away. Soon the errors will have multiplied to the ten-foot scale, and so on up to the size of the globe.Lesson 15 Secrecy in industryTwo factors weigh heavily against the effectiveness of scientific research in industry. One is the general atmosphere of secrecy in which it is carried out, the other the lack of freedom of the individual research worker. In so far as any inquiry is a secret one, it naturally limits all those engaged in carrying it out from effective contact with their fellow scientists either in othercountries or in universities, or even, often enough, in other departments of the same firm. The degree of secrecy naturally varies considerably. Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches which are of such general and fundamental nature that it is a positive advantage to them not to keep them secret. Yet a great many processes depending on such research are sought for with complete secrecy until the stage at which patents can be taken out. Even more processes are never patented at all but kept as secret processes. This applies particularly to chemical industries, where chance discoveries play a much larger part than they do in physical and mechanical industries. Sometimes the secrecy goes to such an extent that the whole nature of the research cannot be mentioned. Many firms, for instance, have great difficulty in obtaining technical or scientific books from libraries because they are unwilling to have names entered as having taken out such and such a book, for fear the agents of other firms should be able to trace the kind of research they are likely to be undertaking.Lesson 16 The modern cityIn the organization of industrial life the influence of the factory upon the physiological and mental state of the workers has been completely neglected. Modern industry is based on the conception of the maximum production at lowest cost, in order that an individual or a group of individuals may earn as much money as possible. It has expanded without any idea of the true nature of the human beings who run the machines, and without giving any consideration to the effects produced on the individuals and on their descendants by the artificial mode of existence imposed by the factory. The great cities have been built with no regard for us. The shape and dimensions of the skyscrapers depend entirely on the necessity of obtaining the maximum income per square foot of ground, and of offering to the tenants offices and apartments that please them. This caused the construction of gigantic buildings where too large masses of human beings are crowded together. Civilized men like such a way of living. While they enjoy the comfort and banal luxury of their dwelling, they do not realize that they are deprived of the necessities of life. The modern city consists of monstrous edifices and of dark, narrow streets full of petrol fumes and toxic gases, torn by the noise of the taxicabs, lorries and buses, and thronged ceaselessly by great crowds. Obviously, it has not been planned for the good of its inhabitants. Lesson 17 A man-made diseaseIn the early days of the settlement of Australia, enterprising settlers unwisely introduced the European rabbit. This rabbit had no natural enemies in the Antipodes, so that it multiplied with that promiscuous abandon characteristic of rabbits. It overran a whole continent. It caused devastation by burrowing and by devouring the herbage which might have maintained millions of sheep and cattle. Scientists discovered that this particular variety of rabbit (and apparently no other animal) was susceptible to a fatal virus disease, myxomatosis. By infecting animals and letting them loose in the burrows, local epidemics of this disease could be created. Later it was found that there was a type of mosquito which acted as the carrier of this disease and passed it on to the rabbits. So while the rest of the world was trying to get rid of mosquitoes, Australia was encouraging this one. It effectively spread the disease all over the continent and drastically reduced the rabbit population. It later became apparent that rabbits were developing a degree of resistance to this disease, so that the rabbit population was unlikely to be completely exterminated. There were hopes, however, that the problem of the rabbit would become manageable.Ironically, Europe, which had bequeathed the rabbit as a pest to Australia, acquired this man-made disease as a pestilence. A French physician decided to get rid of the wild rabbits on his own estate and introduced myxomatosis. It did not, however, remain within the confines of his estate. It spread through France, Where wild rabbits are not generally regarded as a pest but as sport and a useful food supply, and it spread to Britain where wild rabbits are regarded as a pest but where domesticated rabbits, equally susceptible to the disease, are the basis of a profitable fur industry. The question became one of whether Man could control the disease he had invented.Lesson 18 PorpoisesThere has long been a superstition among mariners that porpoises will save drowning men by pushing them to the surface, or protect them from sharks by surrounding them in defensive formation. Marine Studio biologists have pointed out that, however intelligent they may be, it is probably a mistake to credit dolphins with any motive of lifesaving. On the occasions when they have pushed to shore an unconscious human being they have much more likely done it out of curiosity or for sport, as in riding the bow waves of a ship. In 1928 some porpoises were photographer working like beavers to push ashore a waterlogged mattress. If, as has been reported, they have protected humans from sharks, it may have been because curiosity attracted them and because the scent of a possible meal attracted the sharks. Porpoises and sharks are natural enemies. It is possible that upon such an occasion a battle ensued, with the sharks being driven away or killed.Whether it be bird, fish or beast, the porpoise is intrigued with anything that is alive. They are constantly after the turtles, who peacefully submit to all sorts of indignities. One young calf especially enjoyed raising a turtle to the surface with his snout and then shoving him across the tank like an aquaplane. Almost any day a young porpoise may be seen trying to turn a 300-pound sea turtle over by sticking his snout under the edge of his shell and pushing up for dear life. This is not easy, and may require two porpoises working together. In another game, as the turtle swims across the oceanarium, the first porpoise swoops down from above and butts his shell with his belly. This knocks the turtle down several feet. He no sooner recovers his equilibrium than the next porpoise comes along and hits him another crack. Eventually the turtle has been butted all the way down to the floor of the tank. He is now satisfied merely to try to stand up, but as soon as he does so a porpoise knocks him flat. The turtle at last gives up by pulling his feet under his shell and the game is over.Lesson 19 The stuff of dreamsIt is fairly clear that sleeping period must have some function, and because there is so much of it the function would seem to e important. Speculations about is nature have been going on for literally thousands of years, and one odd finding that makes the problem puzzling is that it looks very much as if sleeping is not simply a matter of giving the body a rest. 'Rest', in terms of muscle relaxation and so on, can be achieved by a brief period lying, or even sitting down. The body's tissues are self-repairing and self-restoring to a degree, and function best when more or less continuously active. In fact a basic amount of movement occurs during sleep which is specifically concerned with preventing muscle inactivity.If it is not a question of resting the body, then perhaps it is the brain that needs resting? This might be a plausible hypothesis were it not for two factors. First the electroencephalograph。